Dantius

Right! More or less everyone has finished up with characters/backstories/inventories, so let's schedule our first actual session then:

http://whenisgood.net/autcaesarsession1

Reminder! Session 0 will start in 3.5 hours from now in the AIM chat room spidwebRP.

It'll probably be the same deal as Sy did for her first session- we'll go over the system, build characters, discuss backgrounds, etc.

Well, everybody has picked their role, and you all got your first choice (yay!). Apologies for the delay- I had to travel suddenly over the weekend and didn't have a chance to get this out earlier. You should each be getting more detailed role sheets via PM within the hour.

Now, on to mechanics and character creation:

[spoileralt Mechanics]The play of the game is pretty much straightforward AIMhack mechanics, which you can read about on Ephesos' website. I've changed some things around, though, mainly to do with skills and character creation. The revised character creation instructions are below:

All stats start at 1, and you begin with 10 stat points to be distributed as you please- each level in a stat costs 1 stat point. Stats represent your innate ability to accomplish things, and form the base modifier for rolls, as well as being the basis for derived attributes like health and stamina.

After you’ve picked your stats, you then purchase skills with 30 skill points. Purchasing the k-th level in a skill requires k skill points- so moving from level 0 to 1 requires 1 point, 4 to 5 requires 5, etc. Each skill represents your ability to accomplish a task in a given field, and all receive bonuses from Int unless otherwise indicated. All skills range from 0 to 10: a 0 is totally unskilled, a 2 is somebody with elementary training, a 4 is a competent practitioner, a 6 is a trained and experienced hand, an 8 is an expert with widespread accolades, and a 10 is a galaxy-renowned master. Note that a 0 in a skill unable to roll for that skill at all, and a 10 is famous enough in their field to be recognizable to others with that skill.

Then, pick your inventory and write your backstory. This is all up to you, though I’ll provide feedback and offer you the chance to change things around before each arc starts.

Finally, you will receive a perk known to other players based on that particular character’s publicly available backstory, and some form of further assistance (be it items, extra skill points, additional perks, knowledge, etc.) based on your secret role that is not revealed initially.

Primary Stats:

Strength: Lift, punch, kick, take damage, increase stamina.

Dexterity: Run, jump, dodge, aim, and shoot.

Intelligence: Think, plan, calculate, memorize, and maneuver.

Derived Attributes:

Health: Equals 10 + 2*[str]. When you reach 0 health, you are crippled and begin to bleed stamina. If you fall unconscious while bleeding out, you die.

Speed: Equals 5 + [Dex]/2. Represents roughly how fast you can move, in m/s.

Stamina: Equals 10 + [str]/2 + [Dex]/2. You can spend a stamina to gain a +1 to any active roll. When you reach 0 stamina, you fall unconscious.

Skills:

Combat (Small Arms): Pistols, SMG’s, light assault rifles, short-barreled rifles, etc. (Dex)

Combat (Heavy Arms): Battle rifles, sniper rifles, heavy machine guns, etc. (Dex)

Combat (Exotic Arms): Antitank rifles, missile launchers, rare or powerful weapons, etc. (Dex/Str)

Combat (Melee): Hand-to-hand, knives, batons, etc. (Str)

Knowledge: Know things in a field (common knowledge needs no rolls). Examples of things each field would know are below:

• Computers: Hacking, programming, information retrieval.
  
• Electronics: Hardware, systems, item repair.
  
• Biology: Biochemistry, genetics, bioimplantation.
  
• Chemistry: Reactions, analytical chemistry, chemical synthesis.
  
• Physics: Slipspace drives, plasma physics, nuclear reactions.
  
• Mathematics: Slipspace navigation, cryptography, modelling.
  
• Engineering: Structures, manufacturing, mechanics.
  
• History: Historical events, battles, diplomacy and treaties.
  
• Current Events: Economics, major political figures, current laws.
  
• Academic: Liberal arts, linguistics, literature. Gives bonus to other trained Knowledge rolls.
  

Medicine: Triage patients, act as field medic, perform surgery, diagnose illnesses.

Stealth: Perform actions undetected, hide, pickpocket, move silently. (Dex)

Diplomacy: Persuade, cajole, and negotiate with others.

Coercion: Threaten, blackmail, or bribe others.

Strategy: Military strategy, tactics, and logistics.

Piloting: Effectively maneuver spaceships, aircars, and tanks, among others.

Perception: Hear, smell, see, taste, feel things others miss.

Survival: Survive and thrive in hostile environments (jungles, desert, space). (Str)

Streetwise: Survive and thrive in the megacities, slums, and arcologies.

Combat: Each round in combat you have 2 actions. An example of an action would be moving, using an item in your inventory, firing a weapon, or interacting with the surroundings.

Rolls: There are three types of actions. First is a “simple” action. You announce this action in the chat, roll a die, and compare [roll] + [relevant stat] + [relevant skill] + [other bonuses] to the DC.

The second is a “careful” action- the equivalent of “taking 10”. This is still announced in the chat, but instead of rolling you receive at flat 10 and it takes you roughly twice as long as a simple action. You compare 10 + [relevant stat] + [relevant skill] + [other bonuses] to the DC.

The final action is a “stealth” action. This is done via PM, and you compare 5 + [stealth] + [relevant stat] + [relevant skill] + [other bonuses] to the DC, and other players will not know what you have done or have a chance to react unless there is immediate and obvious impact (eg, you stealth draw and fire upon someone).[/spoileralt]

And finally, the first scenario we will be playing through (I think roughly 4 sessions should cover this one):

[spoileralt Part I: The Black Armada]There have been many unforeseen consequences of the end of the war- among them the resurgence in piracy and smuggling along the Empire-Suzerainty border. Until recently, both nations were content to ignore this, on the theory that it hurt the other side more. That illusion was shattered when a vast pirate fleet of hundreds of ships emerged from nowhere, and seized the Nexus Link- the most important slipspace route between Neoterra and Arcturus. Calling themselves the Black Armada, they proclaimed the territory their property, and demanded all passing ships pay tribute or be destroyed.

The official reaction was swift- in under an hour, the Deputy Assistant Undersecretary to the Imperial Defense Minister, Piracy Operations (First Quadrant) [DAUSIDM-PO-1Q] issued a press release blandly promising “near-term inter-agency and multinational cooperation to deal with the emerging situation in the region”. Grand Admiral Third Class Dassan Ket of the Central Fleet more colorfully remarked “[censored] pirates, who the [censored] do they think they are? If they [censored] think that they can just [censored] [censored] our [censored] slipspace routes, they’re in for a [censored] [censored], even if I have to [censored] Imp [censored] to do it.” Within a week, large fleets from both powers had bottled off their ends of the route in preparation for an offensive to retake the region.

You are a group of mercenaries assembled by the Empire to conduct a preliminary scouting of the region, in order to gather intelligence for the attack itself. Your given task is threefold:

• Identify major Armada targets, bases, and supply lines for retaliation.
  
• Obtain actionable intelligence on the Armada itself- structure, membership, backers, etc.
  
• If possible, rescue an Imperial trade delegation that was in the region when the attack occurred.[/spoileralt]
  

Prepare your characters and backstories/cover stories accordingly, and PM them to me at your leisure (but before Session 1).

EDITS:

[spoileralt Edits]

Some stuff I forgot/clarified elsewhere and am posting here for full disclosure:

Knowledge(Academics) will give a +1 to any trained Knowledge rolls for every two ranks in it you have. So a +4 in Physics, +2 in Academics becomes +5 in Physics, but is still +0 (can't roll) in Biology.

For items, weapons have three types: Kinetic (bullets), Plasma (encapsulated plasma), and laser (directed energy). Plasma is strong against armor and weak against shields, Kinetic is strong against shields and weak against armor, and Laser is strong against both but does much less damage.

All fractional skills are rounded DOWN.

Most DC's will be multiples of 5, because I am lazy. If you have +4 or under to a roll, that basically means you have to either roll or spend a stamina to have a chance of succeeding- taking 10 will do nothing except in the most trivial of cases.[/spoileralt]

Ok, last call for any interested parties to fill out the calendar. It's looking like the session will be at 3:00 PM CST on Wednesday 24 June.

Unless there are any objections to this by the players, I'm going to send out secret roles tomorrow, and once those are claimed we'll start with character creation.

In the meantime, feel free to browse some entries I excerpted from my copy of the Imperial Intelligence Agency Galactic Factbook and familiarize yourself with the factions. Really you just need to skim it, since everything posted will be common knowledge you won't have to roll for, but it could come in handy later on (cough, cough).

[spoileralt=The Milky Way Galaxy]The Galaxy is the home of humanity, the only currently living sentient species in the galaxy. Evidence of alien habitation in our galaxy has been discovered, but even the most recent such ruins are millions of years old or worlds with life forms at Cambrian levels of development. It remains the only known region of the Universe, as all five prior extragalactic expeditions (the most recent of which was over 1,000 years ago) disappeared without transmitting so much as a byte of data.

 

History: Much of humanity’s ancient history has been lost or distorted beyond recognition over time, but it is generally accepted that we fled our home world approximately 10,000 years ago for an unknown cause. We then spread out to inhabit first the nearby regions and then the wider galaxy over the course of the next thousand years, in an event known as the Settling. The next five thousand years after the Settling was marked by more or less constant warfare between independent planets and federations, only ending as the group that would later become the Empire eventually conquered the remaining factions over the course of several millennia. While initially stable and prosperous, as time proceeded the far-flung regions of the galaxy began to chafe under Imperial control, and rebellions became more frequent and harder to suppress. Eventually, the Empire simply gave up and granted limited autonomy (and then full independence) to the Galactic Rim, leading to the establishment of the other major powers of the galaxy.

 

Politics: The galaxy is divided up into four major regions of control: the Empire, the Suzerainty, the Free States, and the Homeworlds, plus dozens of smaller and remote states of limited galactic relevance. Each region is generally self-sufficient and politically stable, though trade between states is frequent. By far the most important galactic event in recent history was the Imperatrix’s War, in which the former Imperatrix Odeana unilaterally declared war and attempted to seize a large swath of territory under Suzerainty protection. This lead to an all-out war on a scale not seen for centuries between the Suzerainty (backed by Coalition forces) and the Empire (backed with Free State support). Despite billions of deaths, the war ended inconclusively after Odeana was killed in battle and her son sued for peace.

 

Economy: The galactic economy is a massive, interconnected web of hundreds of quadrillions of credits, linked by slipspace trade, and covering all sectors from finance to consumer goods to manufacturing to agriculture to research to mining. Rebuilding from the war has led to a vast boost to real galactic product growth, which formerly averaged barely 0.1% per year but is now in excess of 5%. Each power maintains a sovereign fiat currency and a nominal floating exchange rate, though in practice the fluctuations are so small as to be fixed.

 

Statistics:

Population: 2,500 bln.

Territory: 300 kpc^3, 10,000 planets

GDP Per Capita: Cr. 140,000

Total GDP: Cr. 350 qdl.

 

Astrography: A map showing major galactic regions, current political divisions, and capitals is attached in Appendix A.

[/spoileralt]

 

[spoileralt=Core Empire]The Empire (sometimes referred to as the "Galactic Empire" in official documents) is the oldest, richest, and most powerful of all states. It has been the uninterrupted ruler of the galaxy for the past 4,000 years, and can trace its origins back a further 4,000 beyond that. However, its star began to fade over a millennia ago, and 500 years ago the first breakaway states successfully established independence from the Empire. Costly wars, a stagnant economy, and ineffective leadership have since reduced the territory and prestige of the Empire to a fraction of its former extent- though it still remains more powerful than any other individual faction.

 

Leader: Imperator Karaj IV (32) is regarded galaxy-wide as the most dynamic and effective leader the Empire has seen in centuries, despite numerous controversies and his deep unpopularity in certain circles. Originally crowned at the age of 24 in the midst of wars, civil unrest, economic recession, and general malaise, his attempts to sue for peace lead to his overthrow in a palace coup by military leaders at 26. Successfully regaining power by age 28, he embarked upon a sweeping package of military, economic, and social reforms that have more than sextupled the rate of economic growth, halted inflation, and restored confidence. However, his deep spending cuts left him unpopular with the poor, and the military views the unfavorable terms he ended the war on as dishonorable and him as weak.

 

Karaj has also attracted considerable controversy for his choice of First Consort, an academic from the Arcadian Free States by the name of Dr. Alexis Naduk (perhaps the galaxy's foremost expert on synthetic neuroaugmentation) who many claim is unduly influential on him. Karaj's recognition of the Free States as a sovereign region, the first such declaration in over 200 years, is seen by some as a product of Dr. Naduk’s control.

 

Politics: The Imperial government is an admixture of intricate court politics at higher levels and a byzantine bureaucracy covering all aspects of routine government. Despite this, the government is generally efficient and free of corruption- anybody with the ability to fill out and notarize forms in triplicate and then submit them to the correct third-class assistant secretary will (after a 30-day waiting period) generally get the requisite permits to carry out their business. While heredity nobility remains as a holdover of earlier times, advances in communications technology have resulted in the centralization of power, with most noble’s only actual power limited to their inherited wealth and potential access to the Imperator.

 

Economy: The Empire maintains a diversified, consumer-based economy, with its primary emphasis on finance, services, and manufacturing. Mining and resource extraction are minimal, as most of the viable deposits were exploited millennia ago, and research, innovation, and entrepreneurship is generally stifled due to bureaucracy. Large conglomerates dominate industry, and low-level internecine corporate warfare is common. Despite this, Empire GDP accounts for over 60% of galactic output, and they control nearly 80% of wealth.

 

Military: The Imperial fleet was once the strongest and largest space fleet, but a combination of institutional decay, lack of investment, outsourcing of manufacturing, budget cuts, and treaty size limits have reduced it to a mere fraction of its power. Nominally containing 2,000 capital-class ships and 25,000 smaller ones, perhaps half are serviceable at any one time (75% if the remainder is cannibalized for parts), and fewer than 10% incorporate anything resembling the latest weapons, armor, shields, or engines.

 

The army is in a substantially better state, and is generally well-trained, competently equipped, and fully supplied. The officer class of both bodies is generally drawn from the wealthy elites, and the enlisted generally from the urban poor of the cities.

 

Statistics:

Population: 1,500 bln.

Territory: 50 kpc^3, 1,000 planets

GDP Per Capita: Cr. 140,000

Total GDP: Cr. 210 qdl.

[/spoileralt]

 

[spoileralt=Suzerainty of the Rim]The Suzerainty is not a united nation, but rather the aggregate entity controlling foreign and military policy for a group of over 6,000 independent planetary, systems, and cluster governments that retain their domestic sovereignty. The de facto ruler of the suzerainty is the Confederacy of Arcturus, which was the first successful breakaway state from the Empire five centuries ago, and over 70% of Suzerains have hailed from Arcturus.

 

Leader: Suzerain N’Seem Ghol (65) is the longest-serving suzerain in centuries. N’Seem has been “elected” to 8 consecutive two-year terms, despite the longstanding tradition of suzerains never serving consecutive terms. She was the original broker of the peace with the Empire, and the humiliating terms she was able to dictate helped blunt criticism for ending the war when the Suzerainty was in a position of military strength.

Like her counterpart in the Empire, N’Seem has attracted controversy for her pacifist policies, but unlike under the reformist Karaj, the primary concern of most citizens is the shocking, and open, level of corruption inherent in her administration and government. It is virtually impossible to carry out any business beyond the intrastate level without copious greasing of palms, and she has brazenly bribed virtually all members of the Senate at one time or another.

 

Politics: By design, the Suzerainty does not interfere with the domestic policies beyond the calculation of GDP for, and the application of a 10% tax on, member states, who receive in return a guarantee of protection and the right to send a Senator to the central government. This has led to an explosion of wildcat governments covering every possible political spectrum, ranging from extremist military dictatorships to milquetoast democratic republics to anarchic criminal hideouts where prostitution, slavery, and even murder are legal. This, combined with the endemic corruption of the central government, has led to the popular perception of Suzerain citizens as either barbarians, criminals, or get-rich-quick idiots by the remainder of the galaxy.

 

Economy: The primary economic activity of the Suzerainty is resource extraction and processing, accounting for over 40% of GDP, as the region was only settled in the last few millennia and most deposits of light fusion precursors, rare earth minerals, transition metals, and fissile isotopes remain untapped. The remainder of the economy is involved in manufacturing and agriculture, with only limited legal trade between the various worlds due to the necessity of interacting with the Suzerainty and the bribes required. Smuggling and the black market, however, are rampant, with the “dark” economy estimated to account for as much as a quarter of the activity in the region.

 

Military: The Central Fleet, despite its name, is neither central nor a unified fleet. Instead, it is a mishmash of tributary ships sourced from individual colonies, various mercenaries hired with tax funds, pirates with a letter of marque, and a small number of command ships and dreadnaughts answering to the Suzerain directly. The command structure is very weak, as captains are given wide latitude over how to accomplish their objectives and run their ships. Nevertheless, it still manages to be an effective fighting force by dint of its size (over 100,000 active duty ships) and comparative modernity (most ships are new or regularly retrofitted).

 

The idea of a centrally managed army designed to occupy planets is an absolute anathema to Suzerainty politics, due to fear it could be used against component states. As such, it does not exist. Occupations, when they must occur, are either handled by the armies of nearby states along with their Central Fleet contributions, mercenaries, or orbital bombardment.

 

Statistics:

Population: 300 bln.

Territory: 120 kpc^3, 6,000 planets

GDP Per Capita: Cr. 200,000

Total GDP: Cr. 60 qdl[/spoileralt]

 

[spoileralt=Arcadian Free States]The Free States are simultaneously the oldest and newest breakaway from the Empire. Occupying a critical nexus of slipspace routes between the three other regions, their strategic importance meant that they always received “light touch” government from the Empire, with generally laxer regulations, lower taxes, and less formality. This lead to the population of the region with institutions such as universities, nonprofit research centers, new start-ups, and mega-corp R&D labs, all of which took advantage of the ability to operate largely outside the stifling environment of the Empire proper.

 

Leader: Chairwoman Dr. Zatyana Ustinoff (82) is a galaxy-renowned slipspace theoretician and the current elected head of the Board of Governors, whose 16 members are selected by the 256-member Council of Regents, whose members are voted on by the 4,096 member Grand Parliament, whose members are appointed by a mishmash of corporate sponsors, academic institutions, planetary governments, nonprofit organizations, and eminent researchers chosen by the prior Grand Parliament. She has aggressively pursued a policy of rapprochement with the Coalition, despite the Free State’s longstanding ties to the Empire.

 

The only major internal political opposition she faces is from the Vice-Chair Dr. Mikhail Ivanov, a biophysicist who served as the adviser of Dr. Alexis Naduk (who would later go on to serve as the First Consort for Imperator Karaj). Dr. Ivanov’s close ties to his former student (and allegedly with the Imperator himself) means he favors a closer alliance with the Empire and strongly opposes ties with the Coalition.

 

Politics: As can be inferred from the nomination process, internal Free State politics is a morass of shifting alliances, betrayals, deals, and academic knife-fights that is totally incomprehensible to any outsider (and most insiders). Most citizens do not follow it, and indeed most of their day to day interaction with the “government” is with the particular institution they are affiliated with, which are generally held to be able to contract with their employees as they please, subject to very loose restrictions set by the Board.

 

Economy: The Free State is, by a wide margin, the richest and most developed economy per capita in the galaxy. Centered mainly on R&D, technology, and manufacturing, it is dominated by start-ups and competition is fierce. The State’s location on major trades routes means that much of galactic trade flow through it on its way to various other locations, meaning that the government is funded almost entirely by tariffs and patent royalties, with no further taxes. However, the small population and territory size pose a limiting factor to growth, and the region was settled almost as long ago as the Empire, meaning that natural resources are depleted and they are dependent on imports to function.

 

Military: The Free State maintains a small, all-volunteer central military that is outfitted with top-of-the-line ships, equipment, arms, and armor; plus numerous smaller planetary and institutional militias that roughly equal it in strength. On both a ship-for-ship and man-for-man basis, it is the finest fighting force in the galaxy, but it is also exceptionally small, numbering barely over 1,000 ships and with a groundside detachment that would barely be capable of occupying its own territory, much less any other nation’s planets.

 

Statistics:

Population: 100 bln

Territory: 10 kpc^3, 500 planets

GDP Per Capita: I.Cr. 500,000

Total GDP: I.Cr. 50 qdl. [/spoileralt]

 

[spoileralt=Coalition Homeworlds]

The Coalition of Plenary Ascendant is a radical religious movement that spring into existence several hundred years ago. Preaching the equality of all mankind, they have significant popular support among the lower classes, and have managed form a large, cohesive breakaway republic in the fringes of the galaxy.

 

Leader: Hierophant Idriz II (112) is the current spiritual and temporal leader of the Coalition, and by extension, the Homeworlds. Selected via an unknown process by the leaders of the Coalition religion, he will serve until his death or abdication. Idriz has served the Coalition for approximately 7 years, after his appointment following the death of the prior Hierophant at the ripe old age of 125. While all Hierophants preach the importance of the unity and brotherhood of the galaxy, Idriz has seemed especially keen on unity with the Free States under Dr. Ustinoff. Little is known of his background, though rumor has it he was born among the lower classes in the Empire before emigrating as a young adult upon converting.

 

Politics: All member planets of the Homeworlds are governed in the same manner: a devolutionist democratic assembly is advised by a Legate appointed by the Hierophant, and makes all decisions concerning local affairs. As a rule, these decisions are almost always allowed to stand, though the Hierophant does possess the legal authority to overrule them if he deems it necessary (an event which only happens a few times a decade). Central government functions, including taxation, trade policy, regulations, and military affairs are handled by the Hierophant and his advisers.

 

Any individual willing to convert to the Coalition faith and renounce his prior allegiances is granted citizenship and immigration rights, a practice that has attracted considerable hue and cry from other regions of the galaxy, who object to hundreds of millions of their own citizens fleeing their borders and defecting each year.

 

Economy: Despite being located in an older region of the galaxy, the Coalition economy remains very under-developed, with the primary focus on agriculture and secondarily on consumer-based goods. It has an enormous population, second only to the Empire, meaning there is considerable demand for imports and trade with other regions of the galaxy, with their primary export being ag products, supplying enough food to feed almost two trillion people. Despite the comparatively low overall development relative to other states, afflictions such as poverty, hunger, and inequality have been more or less wiped out by the faith, which regards them as abominations and systems that perpetuate them as evil.

 

Military: The fact that the Coalition has the smallest major economy in the galaxy means that it is difficult for the Coalition to field large numbers of ships, with their fleet containing only 10,000 comparatively outdated ships. However, they more than make up for this with the quality of their crew and command- Coalition tacticians and strategists are regarded as the finest in the galaxy, their logistics and support systems mean that the entire fleet is always at nearly 100% readiness, and the crews and soldiers will fight to the last man if need be.

 

Their army is similar- despite only adequate equipment, its size and skill make it a force to be reckoned with, and it excels in the occupation of planets and large operations. Although never proved, it was thought that the only reason Suzerainty ground forces were able to successfully defeat garrisons and occupy Imperial planets during the war was due to massive behind-the-scenes coordination and support by Coalition logisticians and strategists.

 

Statistics:

Population: 600 bln

Territory: 70 kpc^3, 3,000 planets

GDP Per Capita: Cr. 50,000

Total GDP: Cr. 30 qdl.[/spoileralt]

Okay, it seems like there's enough interest here and elsewhere to move forward, so- hey look! It's a calendar!

Fill out the timeslots where you will be available to play (even if you haven't posted in the thread, cough cough), and we'll see what session times look good. Once we get a date nailed down, I'll post character creation instructions and background, and we'll get this ball rolling.

I filled out the calendar and now posted in your thread, so it looks slightly less lonely now.

Apparantly the Same Page Tool is becoming popular here now! That sounds like a useful thing. Here's the one for this campaign:

Will this require me to be online on a certain time with you (DM) and the other players?

Yes. Once the players are picked and the characters created, I'd set up a calendar on whenisgood to determine a 3-4 hour block where we would all be online at once for a session, and we'd have a group chat during which the session itself would actually take place.

How do you play these AIMhack things? Sorry Im new to this.

It's basically a streamlined D&D played over a web-based chat software. You describe actions, roll dice, and the DM (me) determines the outcome.

Is this aimhack as in aimhack or some other system like savage worlds?

It's straight AIMhack with the skill names changed, played in the spidwebRP room via AIM as God (i.e. Ephesos) intended.

The galaxy is in a delicate state.

The long wars of Imperatrix Odeana, that devastated the Galactic Rim and nearly bankrupted the empire, have come to a close. Her son, Imperator Karaj, has brokered a controversial peace between the Empire and the Suzerain of the Rim, and has enacted sweeping reforms intended to restore the Empire to its former greatness.

Meanwhile, the brilliant scientists of the Arcadian Free States are entering into alliances with the secretive and devout Coalition. Smuggling, piracy, and even slavery have returned with a vengeance, and rumors swirl of deranged death cults, powerful AI, and mysterious alien artifacts.

In such a complex and unstable situation, even the smallest action can have dramatic impacts. You, and your allies, have this once chance to finally cement your place in galactic history… forever.

__________

This is, basically, a scifi AIMhack campaign with a twist. Before the campaign begins, each of you will select a campaign goal. These goals are ambitious: to win, you may need to assassinate leaders, start wars, execute coups, build alliances, and carefully manipulate galactic affairs. Four goals are drawn from nationalist perspectives: you must successfully defend or advance the interest of one of the four major powers. Four goals are multipolar in nature: you must successfully accomplish a goal involving multiple powers at once, but are not affiliated with any nation in particular. Finally, four are alternative goals: they require something different entirely to succeed.

The campaign itself will consist of a set of 3-5 interrelated vignettes, each roughly 2-4 sessions, for a total of 10-15 sessions. After each vignette is complete, you will have a chance to level-up (if you survived!), create a new character, reequip your inventory, and perform any needed political maneuvering in the galaxy at large- this will be done via PM with me. Characters who survive will become more powerful, but each vignette can be very different, and you should think carefully about what approach is needed to succeed in each.

At the end of the campaign, I will reveal each player’s goals and announce if they achieved them or not. There is a wide set of goals: many can be achieved at once. Some goals are natural allies who will only benefit by working together. Some can be circumstantial allies or enemies, cooperating on some things and defecting on others. Some are implacable enemies: one’s success necessarily implies the other’s defeat. In expectation, roughly half of you will win and half will lose, though it is possible for everyone to win or everyone to fail.

Also, some general differences: This will not be a primarily combat-focused campaign- though different arcs may feature more or less combat. Any character with skills well-suited to the situation will be able to do well. However, no combat doesn’t mean no deaths. Your objective is to accomplish the goal you set out with, and if your current character has to take one for the team, or even frag some other PC, well, such is life in the future. Think of this as Game of Thrones *in space*.

__________

Anyways, right now I’m primarily gauging interest, so please post below if you’re interested in joining. If there’s sufficient interest (right now I’m shooting for 6-8 players), then we’ll move forwards and I'll post more background, character creation instructions, etc. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, either here via PM or on Calref chat.

I would always stop to kill the new arrivals and summons first, since initially he could barely hit me and I figured he wasn't a threat. Whoops.

Oh noes! My beautiful face!

But on a more serious note' date=' I had some problems because I was a wizard with low HP and enormous resistances, but for some reason his spells by the end of the fight could bypass my wards, so he cound cast Arcane Blow and do ~200 damage to me even [i']with[/i] an Invulnerability potion and all buffs active. The first few times I fought him, he would do this twice in a turn and kill me and I had to reload. Annoying, but I got him on the fourth try or so.

Well, the first shots have been fired on each side. Greece's plan is to convert around 10% of their debt into interest-only perpetual bonds, another 40% into GDP warrants that only pay interest if the country is growing at a certain rate, and leave the remaining 50% as-is. The ECB has countered by eliminating their waiver and is now refusing to accept Greek government debt as lending collateral, meaning that if Greek banks wish to borrow from them, they must do so via unsecured loans charging 1.55% instead of secured loans at 0.05%.

Both of these moves seem quite reasonable- perpetual financing was a staple of high-debt governments like Britain, and they managed to come out fine; and I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable lending somebody money for free with only Greek bonds as collateral. Events are obviously still developing, but it's looking like both sides are tying quite hard to not blow up Europe only to reach an agreement at the last possible second like they did in 2011. Good job everyone, you both win round 1.

Well, North America and Brazil never were the real prizes, which is why everybody was so eager to get rid of them (or, at least, not fight to their last gasps over it). The really valuable bits were the East and West Indies, or what we'd now call the Caribbean and Indonesia, because then you could get spices, sugar, cocoa, coffee, indigo, and that basically gave you license to print money in Europe. It's hard to get a sense of just how important that was today- the Dutch East India company, which had a monopoly on spices in the East indies (duh) would have had an adjusted market cap of $7.5 trillion dollars today. That's half the entire annual output of the US, or the entire stock market of Japan plus the entire stock market of China, or all the gold that's ever existed plus all the silver that's ever existed- and that's for just a few measly islands in Indonesia. You'd better believe the Europeans would keep trying until they ran out of men given that's how big the prize was.

The indigenous people of the Americas and Oceania essentially did not even try to stop the invaders, which in some areas (e.g. Aztec areas) was somewhat understandable, but in many other areas was a huge mistake.

There's no possible way they could have. The Europeans could efficently project force into America/oceania via the sea, and the natives couldn't correspondingly threaten Europe without a navy. The resources that were at stake (spices in Oceania, gold/silver in the New World) were sufficently valuable that even had the natives been able to repel the invaders before a beached had been established, the Europeans would have simply kept trying until the natives were overwhelmed.

Really the only plausible counterfactual that you can think of where Europe doesn't end up ruling the world is if all the nasty diseases are in the Americas and are carried to Europe instead of the other way around, but that wasn't the case, and you could make the argument that pre-modern Europe would be economically helped by a large plague like it was post-Black Death (redistributed land, labor becomes more valuable, real GDP per head goes way up, etc.).

The link, which you appear to have forgotten. Not all of us follow Jeff on Twitter, you know.

EDIT: MORE IMPORTANTLY,

Q: Also, I rellay enjoy the Geneforge series. Is there any plan on updating that series ?

A: Yes, and I'm really excited about it.

Their currency was actually honestly backed up by gold and other treasure, as well as a relatively sane fiscal policy. So people from all over the world invested in it... the Euro and the $Dollar are both fiat currencies though; they are not hard currencies, and in fact the governments can (and do) simply print more. This made the Swiss Franc go way up in value as compared to other currencies. I would argue it's good to have a somewhat strong dollar/franc/whatever... but their Franc got "too strong" if you will: it caused Swiss Exports to cost a lot of money in other countries. That's a simplistic view but still basically the essence of it.

Most of your post is correct, but this bit isn't. The Swiss Franc is a fiat currency like any other, and the SNB can print up as much or as little as it likes on a whim. They terminated their gold peg fairly recently (late 90's IIRC), much later than the rest of the world, and as a result they still hold quite a bit of gold- my back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests around 8.8 cents worth of gold per dollar of GDP, versus the US's 2.4 cents and the world average of 2.8 cents. Still, that's a far cry from "backed by gold".

Fundamentally Switzerland's problem is that they're a net exporter despite a strong currency- which means that when the rest of the world is in trouble, your currency shoots up in value and people stop buying your stuff, meaning you're in trouble now, too. By contrast, the US also has a strong currency, but we're a net importer, so when the rest of the world is in trouble we just get to buy our stuff cheaper. This isn't an easy problem to fix without either permanently wrecking your currency or seriously damaging your domestic economy. I don't envy the SNB's job.

At least not if part of the goal is for Greece to recover.

I don't really buy into a lot of the memes surrounding Greece to the effect of "Oh, it's just a transfer from poor greek citizens who are totally innocent to evil banksters by neoliberal Eurocrats", but honestly, at this point I'm seriously questioning if there's active hostility to the idea of a Greek recovery by the powers that be.

I mean, deep down, I think everbody knows that Greece isn't ever going to be able to pay back their debt, regardless of what policies are enacted. So is this just an elaborate piece of kabuki where Greece gets hammered down so that Spain and Italy don't get any ideas? Because that just seems like a terrible policy to me. Mississippi wouldn't be able to pay down their share of the US debt, either, but we don't punish them for this in order to make an example for Alabama.

Wait ... you play with a Singleton on Normal (giving you base stats well above what the game expects you to have)

Yes, but also only having 1/4 the total damage per round, 1/4 the actions per round, no resurrections, no ability to target multiple enemies outside of AoE spells, no specialization, etc. Sure, the character was much more powerful than a random character in a four-man group, but 4x as powerful? I think not. There's a reason why singleton characters are usually considered a challenge in SW games.

giving you 30+ extra points to allocate to combat/defense skills

No, since those are group checks in the course of normal play, I only really "gave" myself 8 skill points (30/4). Considering my levels were well into to 50's by game end, that's really a negiligible difference even factoring in the soft cap. I have little doubt that it would still have been smooth sailing had I invested those points manually, especially considering I was wiping the floor by level 20-ish. The main difference in my effective power that I found was the spells (and spell levels) and items I had access to, not the skills I posessed.

Try playing a four character party on Torment without using the editor - see if that makes it more interesting for you

Will this magically unlock new spells, reorder item drops, and alter enemy AI and combat behavior? Or will it just give bosses a ton of extra HP I have to chip away at and make me have to heal more frequently? I'll hazard the latter.

Syriza has won a resounding victory and formed a coalition government in Greece, seems poised to try and renegotiate austerity and the bailouts, Hollande's approval rating has doubled, the ECB is firing up the presses for QE: We're Worse At Our Jobs Than The Fed Edition, the Euro has fallen by 30% to 1.12 against the dollar, and Switzerland decided to troll everybody by dropping their currency peg.

In short, interesting things are happening in Europe. Let's discuss them.

Missing from the list: Venomous Blade. Go through the secret passage in the wall to the west of the Crystal Soul Shrine, then use the Orb of Thralni to fly over the lava. Force your way into the Vahnatai tomb and you get it

EDIT: Clairified directions

tl;dr: Disappointed expectations, 6/10.

Longer form:

I am, of course, a longtime fan of Jeff’s games, though my tastes tend to run towards the Geneforge series rather than Avernum/Exile. Still, I’ve played in full G1-G5, plus A3 and A5, plenty (most?) BoA scenarios, and in large part A1, A2, A6, and Nethergate, plus a smattering of Jeff’s other games. I came into the game expecting, more or less, the typical Jeff package: fairly tactical turn-based grid combat, tight writing, an engaging plot, plenty of areas to explore, replay value, and generally a game that can be a huge timesink but doesn’t actually feel like one (isn’t grind-y, etc.). Of those six objectives, I feel like I got maybe two to three- the game wasn’t bad by any stretch, and certainly worth the money, but it definitely pales in comparison to his prior work. Far be it from me to be a cynic, but would almost think this is little more than a soulless repackaging of an old cash cow to exploit a loyal fanbase and also appeal to a wider audience on Steam for a quick buck.

First, the gameplay. I played through on Normal as a singleton, optimized for mage/priest spells with a little combat skills tossed in. Full disclosure, I did use the character editor to max out party skills (tool use, cave lore, etc.), but other than that, nothing. The spells list has been remarkably dumbed-down, even from Avernum (I am told that Exile supposedly had like a zillion spells, but cannot confirm for myself.). Gone are spells that add any level of tactical sophistication, like recurring area damage (CoB), enemy specific damage (Repel Spirit), or effects beyond bless party, curse enemy, damage enemy, summon thing. Combat becomes a matter of moving my mage a few squares to maximize the number of enemies caught in my cone, and then casting whichever attack the current batch of enemies don’t resist, occasionally pausing to quaff a potion. I used summons maybe twice, and curses in exactly one fight. By the endgame combat had become simply pressing “p”->”t” until everybody died, or at least until only Gazers were left to finish off with Fireblast. Lack of spells isn’t inherently a bad thing, G1 had like nine total and as many creations, but combat there was interesting and varied, whereas combat in CS was just dull. The only actually difficult (read: interesting) fights I ran into was the drake in the NE lair at the beginning, because I was so weak, and maybe Garzahd, because his spells apparently bypassed my Invulnerability elixirs (bug?) and could two-shot me with castings of Arcane Blow. I found most consumable spells (excepting Piercing crystals) are useless by Act III, and pretty quickly my character had enough spell energy to clear out a dungeon without needing Energy potions at all. Bosses were made “difficult” by adding lots of HP or minions, but nobody could hit me and so I just stood around while they made futile swings with 20% TH. And speaking of TH, it’s clear Jeff needs to fix his RNG, since my character had 90% TH but maybe 70% accuracy- there were numerous places I missed three or four times in a row with 90% TH, which should be nearly impossible. Also, the pathing algorithms (especially outdoors) suck. If I click a point downriver, the AI should be able to figure out I want to sail to it, and not ram repeatedly into the banks and stop. A* isn’t a secret, it’s been around since the 60’s. Equipment was randomly dispersed and there was no clear rhyme or reason as to why- one of the best spears is found right at the beginning in a random bat nest, but you can’t get a good sword for love or money until you hit Chapter 3, if not 4 (Also, removing the Alien Blade made me sad, and the Venomous Blade was hidden in such a obscure place that even Randomizer didn’t find it). The best mage armor in the game (Runed Plate) is the reward for an early fetch quest for magical notes, but you don’t get the Robe of the Magi until you take it from Garzahd’s corpse.

The writing is probably the strongest part of the game. There’s plenty of fun, quirky humor that doesn’t feel too out of place, possibly because it’s usually grimly sarcastic Jeff-isms, which fits well with the setting. Some of the responses are gold, like when you finally approach Garzahd to duel him for Avernum, pausing only to ask “WHAT did you do to your FACE??” I didn’t have any real complaints here, full marks.

The plot is more or less straightforward: Thing happens (Chapter I), go through linear intro mission (Chapters II/III), complete three objectives in open world (rescue titular Crystal Souls), endgame (kill Garzahd/destroy portal). There’s little nuance, though there are hints of what’s to come in Avernum: Ruined World and how both Rentar and Erika are crazy psychopaths who’ll burn the world if it suits them, and generally it’s a straightforward scrappy rebels vs. evil empire narrative. Still, nothing really wrong with that, and there’s no obvious flaws, so half credit, I suppose.

The pacing, on the other hand, was atrocious. I emerged from the Vahnatai lands having 100% completed the game thus far, ready to zip up the ranks as befits my prestige as the trusted ambassador to the Vahnatai and master negotiator who literally saved the war effort for them, only to find myself doing fetch quests and delivering letters to people in irrelevant forts for HOURS on end, which really killed immersion. Even when I did huge assists like hunting down and killing the notorious Empire general Lemon Gelato (sp?) or devastating Imperial supply lines or recovering powerful artifacts, I didn’t get more than a pat on the head and vague promises of future support, all while my equipment and spells stagnated because all the good stuff needed Magi clearance to get. The threshold needs to be seriously lowered, to like 20-25 rep. And with Crown clearance it was the opposite problem- I did like three quests after Magi before I got it, going from persona non grata to trusted confidante of the King in like a half hour. If you’re going to have dumb barriers to the player’s progress like that, then an effort should at least be made to ensure that the player spends roughly the same time in no-clearance, Magi-clearance, and Crown-clearance tiers.

I do like the indoor/outdoor split more than a minimap with fast travel like Geneforge, and the outdoor areas were interesting to explore and find all the fun little mini-zones, and thre was also an element of tension when you had left a dungeon and needed to avoid encounters until you could get back to a friendly town. The map was large and fun to explore, and (especially in Dark Waters, far and away the best part of the game), the atmosphere was great. Level design was also nice, and I did like the few twists thrown in to mess up people following A2 walkthroughs. Full marks for that.

Replay value is minimal to none- one playthrough can get pretty much everything to see in the game- all the quests, interactions, and locations, and since I’d guess most play with a party of 4, most combat styles. You don’t get any real choices beyond what order to do things in, and there’s no factions or anything. This may just be pro-Geneforge whinging, but I feel like this is unnecessarily constraining, and most of Jeff’s better games have more depth than that. You don’t literally have to copy-paste A/X2! It’s a remake, do things differently. Maybe I want to defect to the Vahnatai and go native, or sabotage them in preparation for a future Avernite conquest. Maybe I only wanted to kill Garzahd so I could take his place. Maybe I was a loyal Empire plant this whole time! What if I want to supplant Micah’s drooling idiot of a son and usurp the throne? I can’t even sell my soul and morals out for unlimited power and a nifty facelift like I could in earlier games, and that’s definitely thematically appropriate for the setting. (BTW, all these suggestions are offered free of charge for the inevitable fourth remake of the series, whether at Jeff’s hand or by whoever he auctions off the IP to at retirement. No credit/fantastic royalty payments in Swiss francs need be given, though they are appreciated.) I really can’t let this one slide, I guess, so no credit here.

All in all, I felt disappointed by this game. I had high expectations, considering most Avernum fans cite 2 as the high point of the series, and it let me down. That doesn’t mean it’s bad by any stretch- Steam has me logging 80 hours in total, and at a quarter an hour it’s a fantastic entertainment bargain and really a fun way to while away time. I’d almost certainly buy and play it again even knowing what I do now. I just can’t shake he feeling that now that we’re on Remake #3, the eleventh/thirteenth game in the broader series, Jeff should have made bigger steps forward than just shiny new tilesets and a bigger windows (one last complaint: now that the windows are huge, more quick spell/item slots would be nice). It’s better than most other post-bubble Indie games, more fun than plenty of full AAA RPG’s, but just not up to Jeff’s prior high water marks. 6/10, if I had to assign a numeric score: Above average, but plenty of room to go.

In an unrelated note, it's good to be back, no need to say you missed me.

School was fun senior year and that's about it. Graphic Arts Design was easy because the teacher didnt teach anything. We had an elaborate cheating program that was in place. 3 People did the work in the class and it was their job to make the right stuff. From there we would take assignments which were always different, and change a few things each time. I got an A- in class and I didn't do one thing. It was clutch!

Well, I suppose it's a good thing you won't be going into any career that matters with that attitude. I'd hate to see you become a doctor or something if that's your idea of a good class.

The so-called "financial crisis" and Snowdengate have convinced me that while representative democracy is still better than outright tyranny, albeit more hypocritical, the time has come for the people to have more of the good stuff, namely democracy.

 

Why is the will of the people somehow not democratic enough, whereas the opinion of a few hundred bankster-sponsored kleptocrats under the surveillance of NSA Pinkerton "security" contractors is law?

Pardon my late arrival to this thread; I'm just popping in to say that this is certainly one of the more well-crafted pieces of Spiderweb flamebait I've seen. We've hit pretty much all the high notes- financial crisis, Snowden, banksters/ kleptocrat, NSA, and a nice historical reference with the Pinkertons. For your edification, I'd suggest that future such posts also include phrases such as "extrajudical killings/flying death robots", "Trans-Pacific Partnership", and perhaps "Keystone XL". I give it a 9/10; excellent effort, but falls just shy of perfection.

You might also want to try and expand your political reach to try and pick up disenchanted libertarians and Republican instead of simply those left of center in your quest for more voter representation, the Tea Party would be natural allies. Obviously, such people are few and far between on SW, but they are quite common in the larger internet. A sample vocabulary for your perusal is below. Study up, there will be a test:

• Unelected Washington bureaucrats!
  
• Pick one (Or several! I don't judge!): {Benghazi, Fast and Furious, IRSGate}
  
• Most arrogant president ever! (Bonus points for "uppity"! Double points for "boy"! Triple for equating Michelle to Marie Antoinette!)
  
• Political cronyism unseen since Nixon!
  
• Blatant disregard for the constitution!
  
• Once said mean things about people in finance!
  

I answered the questions, and then I didn't like how my answers could be interpreted, so I went back to write in explanations, but then I ran out of space, so I had to be brief. Apologies if I have committed some egregious error in my wordings, no offense was intended.